IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/111949.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Federalism, Expenditure Assignments and Gender Equality

Author

Listed:
  • Chakraborty, Lekha S

Abstract

We analyse the theoretical and empirical constructs of federal fiscal relations and present a roadmap to integrate gender in fiscal federalism. Applying an “equally distributed equivalent” methodology, gender equality is measured for this purpose. This also involves an analysis of the institutional space through a “gender lens”, especially in the tax and expenditure assignments as well as the intergovernmental fiscal transfers. We arrive at the following four inferences. One, fiscal federalism, theoretically, is neither good nor bad for gender equality. The impact of fiscal federalism on gender equality outcomes depend on the interface between institutional design and intergovernmental fiscal transfers. Two, with the progress of federal governance and fiscal decentralization, significant expenditure assignments that are important for gender equality including health care, labour and education are given importance in the gender budgeting design. Three, the fiscal allocations relate to eliminating the statistical invisibility of unmonetised care economy labour that may promote women’s economic empowerment need further emphasis. Four, the system of taxation and tax policy design are relevant to gender equality. However, evidence suggests that differential tax system and tax exemptions cannot correct gender inequalities. Five, in addition to integrating gender criteria in the tax-transfer formula, the fiscal federalism arrangements such as specific-purpose grants to subnational governments can promote gender equality.

Suggested Citation

  • Chakraborty, Lekha S, 2021. "Fiscal Federalism, Expenditure Assignments and Gender Equality," MPRA Paper 111949, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:111949
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/111949/1/MPRA_paper_111949.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 1999. "Relative Capture of Local and Central Governments: An Essay in the Political Economy of Decentralization," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233624, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    2. Robert Duval-Hernandez & Lei Fang & L. Rachel Ngai, 2017. "Taxes and Market Hours: The Role of Gender and Skill," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2017-8, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    3. Stotsky, Janet G. & Chakraborty, Lekha & Gandhi, Piyush, 2018. "Impact of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers on Gender Equality in India: An Empirical Analysis," Working Papers 18/240, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    4. Salmon, Pierre, 1987. "Decentralisation as an Incentive Scheme," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 3(2), pages 24-43, Summer.
    5. Lekha S. Chakraborty, 2010. "Determining Gender Equity in Fiscal Federalism-- Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence from India," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_590, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Spencer Bastani, 2013. "Gender-based and couple-based taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(4), pages 653-686, August.
    7. Rana Hendy & Chahir Zaki, 2013. "Assessing the Effects of Trade Liberalization on Wage Inequalities in Egypt: A Microsimulation Analysis," The International Trade Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 63-104, March.
    8. Klasen, Stephan & Pieters, Janneke, 2012. "Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labor Force Participation during India's Economic Boom," IZA Discussion Papers 6395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    10. Hundsdoerfer, Jochen & Matthaei, Eva Kristina, 2020. "Gender discriminatory taxes, fairness perception, and labor supply," Discussion Papers 2020/6, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    11. Chakraborty, Lekha & Singh, Yadawendra, 2018. "Fiscal Policy, as the "Employer of Last Resort": Impact of MGNREGS on Labour Force Participation Rates in India," Working Papers 18/210, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    12. Abhishek Anand & Lekha S. Chakraborty, 2016. "'Engendering' Intergovernmental Transfers: Is There a Case for Gender-sensitive Horizontal Fiscal Equalization?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_874, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2007. "Against 'Gender-based taxation'," CEPR Discussion Papers 6582, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Esteve-Volart, Berta, 2004. "Gender discrimination and growth: theory and evidence from India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6641, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Bategeka, Lawrence & Guloba, Madina & Kiiza, Julius, 2009. "Gender and taxation: analysis of personal income tax (PIT)," Research Series 54938, Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).
    16. Miss Sonali Das & Ms. Sonali Jain-Chandra & Ms. Kalpana Kochhar & Naresh Kumar, 2015. "Women Workers in India: Why So Few Among So Many?," IMF Working Papers 2015/055, International Monetary Fund.
    17. David Cuberes & Marc Teignier, 2012. "Gender Gaps in the Labor Market and Aggregate Productivity," Working Papers 2012017, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    18. M. Govinda Rao & Chakraborty, Lekha S., 2006. "Fiscal decentralisation and local level gender responsive budgeting in Morocco: Some observations," Working Papers 06/42, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    19. Jill Vickers, 2013. "Is Federalism Gendered? Incorporating Gender into Studies of Federalism," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 43(1), pages 1-23, January.
    20. Stephan Klasen & Francesca Lamanna, 2008. "The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Updates and Extensions," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 175, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pandey, Rita & Gupta, Manish & Sachdeva, Paavani & Singh, Abhishek, 2021. "Financing Biodiversity and Ecosystems Conservation in India: Implications for Efforts and Outcomes," Working Papers 21/335, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    2. Chakraborty, Lekha & Kaur, Gurleen & Rangan, Divy & Kaur, Amandeep, 2021. "Analysing Fiscal Federalism in Global South: South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Nepal," Working Papers 21/363, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chakraborty, Lekha, 2021. "Fiscal Federalism, Expenditure Assignments and Gender Equality," Working Papers 21/334, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    2. Chakraborty, Lekha S & Singh, Yadawendra, 2018. "Fiscal Policy, as the “Employer of Last Resort”: Impact of Direct fiscal transfer (MGNREGA) on Labour Force Participation Rates in India," MPRA Paper 85225, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. International Monetary Fund, 2015. "India: Selected Issues Paper," IMF Staff Country Reports 2015/062, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Miss Sonali Das & Ms. Sonali Jain-Chandra & Ms. Kalpana Kochhar & Naresh Kumar, 2015. "Women Workers in India: Why So Few Among So Many?," IMF Working Papers 2015/055, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Dahlum, Sirianne & Knutsen, Carl Henrik & Mechkova, Valeriya, 2022. "Women’s political empowerment and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    6. Ghosh, Saibal & Vinod, D., 2017. "What Constrains Financial Inclusion for Women? Evidence from Indian Micro data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 60-81.
    7. Purva Khera, 2016. "Macroeconomic Impacts of Gender Inequality and Informality in India," IMF Working Papers 2016/016, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," LICOS Discussion Papers 34113, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    9. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.
    10. Isis Gaddis & Stephan Klasen, 2014. "Economic development, structural change, and women’s labor force participation:," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 639-681, July.
    11. Sofia Amaral & Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Rudra Sensarma, 2015. "Public Work Programs and Gender-based Violence: The Case of NREGA in India," Discussion Papers 15-09, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    12. Deshpande, Ashwini & Goel, Deepti & Khanna, Shantanu, 2018. "Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male–Female Wage Gaps Among Salaried Workers in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 331-344.
    13. Chakraborty, Lekha S., 2006. "Fiscal decentralisation and local level gender responsive budgeting in Philippines: An empirical analysis," Working Papers 06/41, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    14. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2013. "The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid to Women's Equality Organizations in the MENA: Does Aid Promote Women's Political Participation?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-074, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Ceesay, Ebrima K., 2013. "Inequality and growth," MPRA Paper 45492, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina, 2013. "The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid to Women's Equality Organizations in the MENA : Does Aid Promote Women's Political Participation?," WIDER Working Paper Series 074, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Thomas Schober & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2009. "Gender Wage Inequality and Economic Growth: Is there Really a Puzzle?," NRN working papers 2009-08, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    18. Romina Kazandjian & Ms. Lisa L Kolovich & Ms. Kalpana Kochhar & Ms. Monique Newiak, 2016. "Gender Equality and Economic Diversification," IMF Working Papers 2016/140, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Chakraborty, Lekha & Ingrams, Marian & Singh, Yadawendra, 2018. "Fiscal Policy Effectiveness and Inequality: Efficacy of Gender Budgeting in Asia Pacific," Working Papers 18/224, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    20. Lekha Chakraborty, 2014. "Integrating Time in Public Policy: Empirical Description of Gender-specific Outcomes and Budgeting," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_785, Levy Economics Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal federalism; gender equality; intergovernmental fiscal transfers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:111949. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.